File:Beethoven Riedel 1801.jpg
The Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, an authoritative source, gives a picture of an engraving (black and white) that looks rather like this picture. They say it is an engraved portrait made by Riedel "based on an earlier drawing from Vienna portrait artist Gandolph Ernst Stainhauser." You can see this engraving (overwritten by a watermark, so we can't use it) at their website: [1].
The image we are using is colored -- who did this? -- and I think it is also much more flattering than the engraving displayed by the Beethoven-Haus. Could it be a long-post-Beethoven sentimentalized version of the Riedel engraving? Certainly there is plenty of precedent for this kind of falsification. And the hypothesis that it is a post-lifetime sentimentalized portrait would explain why it displays a handsome young man when contemporary testimony (see Beethoven-Haus link) tells us Beethoven was pretty darn ugly.
I am stuck, and input from experts would be most welcome. Opus33 (talk) 02:41, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
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